Thanks to her musicianship and stage experience, she immediately secured three international contracts : Sir David Webster, artistic director of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, presented her on that stage as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello, between Mario Del Monaco and Tito Gobbi, under Sir Georg Solti’s baton.

Kurt Herbert Adler offered her a debut in the United States, again as Desdemona in San Francisco; a few months later, Rudolf Bing of the Metropolitan in New York, secured her services for fifteen seasons, beginning with Pagliacci with Carlo Bergonzi. Between 1961 amd 1968 Raina studied technique and repertoire with the great Rosa Ponselle in Baltimore and with her she prepared the roles of Leonora in La forza del destino, Cio.-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly and Leonora in Trovatore. Some extremely interesting tapes of those lessons are still extant.

Kabaivanska’s working relationship with La Scala remained intense during the ‘60’es (Falstaff, Busoni’s Turandot, Suor Angelica, Don Carlos, Mefistofele, Rien-zi). But her activity in the States was even more intense and profitable: at the Met and in the biggest American cities (Chicago, Washington, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas and so on) our artist polished all those roles that later gave her glory with humility and concentration.

In 1969 Raina opened the season at La Scala singing Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani with Placido Domingo and her fellow countryman Nikolai Ghiaurov. On that occasion she met a young stage producer, Franco Guandalini, the assistant to Giorgio De Lullo and an art collector, who was a chemist in Modena in Northern Italy. He would later become her husband. After the birth of daughter Francesca ( so christened after Zandonai’s opera), Raina Kabaivanska chose the city of Modena for her home.